Mind The Gap…
On the 7th of Jan we held a workshop for anyone interested in Travel and Transport for disabled and elderly people as well as people with mental health issues, in the borough hosted by Disability in Action at Queens Cross Network.
We had a brilliant turnout and we were delighted to see such a wide breath of organisations.
They included :
- Access in Dudley
- Age UK Dudley
- Beacon Centre for the Blind
- Community Transport
- Disability in Action
- Dudley Support Group for Macular Degeneration
- Dudley MIND
- Dudley Disabled Learning & Activities Centre
- Dudley Voices for Choice
- Dudley Health Forum
- DMBC’s Social Care Staff
- DMBC Transport
- Halesowen Asian Elders
- Multiple Sclerosis Society
- Queens Cross Network
- Senior Citizen Forum
- Triple 20 Taxis
- Wychbury Patient Panel Group
Apologies if I have missed anyone it was a very busy room…
Only by working in partnership can we tackle some of the really important barriers facing local people around access to effective travel and transport to enable them to live as independently as possible. True partnership is about working together, sharing resources and utilising the strengths of people and other organisations.
Also there are a number of opportunities that by working together we can access that by working alone we could not.
Following on from this workshop we agreed to do a mapping and gapping exercise (hence the title of this blog post) to look at the organisations interested in working together, what they currently do and how they support people with travel and transport related issues.
For example, a number of the groups have already agreed between them to look at maximizing the effectiveness of the collective minibus fleet in the borough. Are too many of the minibuses in the borough sitting idle during the day and in the evening? This is at a time when people are telling us they are facing difficulties getting around and organisations such as Ring and Ride and Community Transport are facing severe financial and capacity challenges.
If you would like to participate in this mapping and gapping exercise, but were not able to join us on the 7th of Jan, we would be delighted if you could complete a short questionnaire about you and your services which can be found using the following link by the end of January.
We will share the results with everyone involved and on these pages.
If you have any thoughts on Travel and Transport issues please feel free to provide comments below
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